Jumble! – we have been playing our own version of the popular-since-1954 newspaper word game, “Jumble”. I mix up the letters of a word, and my son unscrambles the letters. My son LOVES this challenge! As opposed to this: I thought my son might be interested in watching a plant grow from seed, so a few nights ago I brought up a packet of radish seeds to the STORIES AND STUDIES CENTER and was met with (in Victorian terms) “the cut direct”. Well, bummer. But at least I can tell when my son is engaged and when he is not. And whether he likes it or not, we are going to be serving up home grown radishes in a few short weeks.
Farmer Brown grows radishes (story problem) – (oh my, this one is so easy) It is rather late in the growing season, but Farmer Brown is laying in another crop of radishes – Le Fictitious Local Diner will buy all that he has to sell, and the radishes grow so fast. If Farmer Brown plants 1,000 radish seeds and is able to harvest 800 radishes, what percentage of the seeds transformed into an edible (vocab) vegetable? If rabbits ate half of the unharvested radishes, how many did they consume? If the local diner garnishes every salad with two sliced-up radishes, how many radishes do they need for a PTA luncheon of 150 attendees and a bowling league dinner of 20 team members? (answers at bottom of post)
“Cixi – Evil Empress of China?” – we are half-way through yet another book from the “A Wicked History” series. These books NEVER disappoint. So: China in the 1800s – we thought the book would be about inner-court intrigues or friction between royalty and peasants. But no. So far, the lead story is about the most preposterous foreign invasions. China had a centuries-long tradition of NOT welcoming foreign trade, so GET THIS – during the 1800s, Britain and France (I am sorry to say), using vastly superior military might, forced China to trade. How upside-down is this? My son and I seem to have this small discussion every night: does a country with any sense at all go to war to force a clearly reluctant other country to engage in COMMERCE? Suffice it to say, we open this book every night hoping we will start to understand, and in the meantime learn more about Empress Cixi. We are sort of hoping that her evilness doesn’t disappoint…tonight is promising – we will be reading a short essay that appears to infer that Cixi poisoned her enemies. Yikes!
Greek Mythology a la Ken Jennings – The fact is this: my son and I are still loving “Ken Jennings Junior Genius Guide to Greek Mythology”. The fact is this: the Greek mythology family tree is hilariously confusing. There is a dizzying quantity gods, goddesses, muses, nymphs, and super-strength mortals. Just to make sure my son had a grasp of the basics, I gave him two quizzes – one that matched Greek gods with Roman gods and a multiple choice quiz that covered mythology vocabulary. I also gave the quizzes to my husband. They both did so well! (And if you are looking closely at the photo above – my son selected correctly – researchers now say that Pandora had a JAR, not a BOX!)
“Penny from Heaven” – we’ve just finished this fun fiction read by Jennifer L. Holm. As we found from another of her books, “The 14th Goldfish”, Holm excels in characterizing family dynamics – in this case we ended up wanting to be a part of the protagonist’s father’s extended Italian family. For us, this was a captivating book with a handful of serious discussion topics. Tonight we start on another Holm novel, “Turtle in Paradise”.
Bohemian Birthday – Classical music listening – Last Friday (September 8th) was the birthdate of composer Antonin Dvorak. So, after finding his birth country on our globe (Bohemia – now the Czech Republic), and a few basic arithmetic questions (Dvorak was born in 1841, how old would he be if he were still alive to celebrate this birthday? Dvorak died in 1904, how long did he live?), we enjoyed three favorite recordings.
Sidebar notes –
1) For no particular reason at all, we selected Dvorak recordings conducted by international treasure Seiji Ozawa. (Not to be jerky, but it is hard not to take notice of Mr. Ozawa’s hair.)
2) Two of our selected compositions were recorded by the acclaimed Vienna Philharmonic – and if the music were just not SO great, we would have been preoccupied by trying to find women musicians in the orchestra.
Slavonic Dance No. 1 – composed in 1878, under full encouragement of Johannes Brahms. We think if we were musicians we would like playing this sweetly rambunctious folk dance, and we would definitely like to be somewhere in the orchestra hall if only to gaze upon Ozawa’s CRAZY cartoon-style coiffure. Nonetheless, superbly conducted:
Humoresque – It has been written that Dvorak’s “Humoresque” (referring to the seventh of his eight “Humoresques”, composed in 1894) is probably the most famous small piano work ever written (after Beethoven’s “Fur Elise”). We first listened to this as it was written (for piano), and our thought was, “yeah, yeah, yeah – this sounds familiar – sort of boring”. THEN we listened to to a recording of Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Orchestra, showcasing Itzhak Perlman and Yo Yo Ma: GAME CHANGER. Who knew “Humoresque” was a heartbreaker??? This is proof of the power of a conductor’s vision:
“The Largo Movement” from Symphony No. 9 (“From the New World Symphony”, movement 2) – composed in 1892. Majestic loneliness. Ozawa’s hair under control:
Welcome to the best part of my day!
– Jane BH
(story problem answers: 80%, 100 radishes, 340 radishes)
